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I guess what I'm not getting in any of these posts is why anyone would want a cropped image.

At the most superficial level some people just don't like seeing "black bars" but I think others feel that a widescreen picture can provide a more full and cinematic experience. Now whether that can actually be accomplished by such post-processing is certainly up for debate but I think that's the goal. Hopefully by using the full frame source and judiciously and selectively cropping one can do better than merely using their TV's zoom function.

Don't get me wrong I'm all about OAR and original FX but I can see the other side and have an interest in it to some extent. I do think if one has to choose between one or the other that going with OAR is absolutely the right choice.

Using the zoom feature on your Blu-ray remote does that for you. The choice is literally at your fingertips already. If CBS-D were to create 16x9 versions, it wouldn't look any better than zooming it yourself. Heads would be chopped off, the saucer of the Enterprise would be chopped off, etc.

No, that's not right at all.

When a studio does the cropping, it's usually done in a "smart" way, with at least some attempt made at shot composition. Depending on what's important in a given scene, the general wisdom is to position the matte just above the heighest head.

If you use the zoom function on your TV, you will simply get the centre of the 4:3 image throughout - making many, many shots look bloody awful.

For the record, I hate cropping of 4:3 material.

__________________YOU MONOTONE HUMANS ARE ALL ALIKE... FIRST YOU CONDEMN, THEN ATTACK.

What excessive overhead and bottom space are you referring to? The show was composed for that aspect ratio. No space is wasted.

jimbotron wrote:

If CBS-D were to create 16x9 versions, it wouldn't look any better than zooming it yourself. Heads would be chopped off, the saucer of the Enterprise would be chopped off, etc.

You're both right -- that the show was composed for 4:3 and that VFX would be problematic in 16:9... but here are two examples I put together that I thought might be visually helpful which utilize the Full Camera Aperture that we were fortunately shown in the gag reels, so that we can all see, in motion, where 1.33 and 1.78 would fall over the original film image. (I know that I have done this kind of thing to death in still form, so I apologize in advance to those who have had it up to here, but bear with me ). This also might help the OP if he's still around.

The first video is how the show was framed in 1.33:1 TV Transmitted Area with Action Safe protection for old cathode ray tubes (which is what Robert seems so insistent on). The larger TV Trans area is how the show appears on Blu-ray, which, according to Panavision, is actually the SMPTE recommended practice... and here in fact I've used Panavision's frame leader chart for the markings, so you can get a pretty good idea of what the camera operator was seeing in his ground glass.

Now the second video is patterned after the 16:9 example of footage from "The Naked Now" that is seen in the Energized! doc on the Season One blu-ray set and as you can see it is slightly wider than TV Trans area, which in fact causes a white bounce board to be visible in the frame at 3:44. That's the kind of thing (production equipment) that would have to be erased over and over ad infinitum if they had chosen 16:9.

Both videos are in 720p, so feel free to chose that resolution and hit full screen:

__________________"Shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion." -Thomas Jefferson

Fantastic, concise and graphic visualization. Many, many thanks, I thought I'd never see it.

And yes, "TV Transmitted" is what the broadcasters and others could see on their professional CRT monitors.
But what the audiences actually got to see (and is still OAR in my opinion), after the overscan of their consumer TVs had trimmed the received / transmitted image, is "TV Safe Action".

Bob

__________________
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth" Jean-Luc Picard
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

Fantastic, concise and graphic visualization. Many, many thanks, I thought I'd never see it.

And yes, "TV Transmitted" is what the broadcasters and others could see on their professional CRT monitors.
But what the audiences actually got to see (and is still OAR in my opinion), after the overscan of their consumer TVs had trimmed the received / transmitted image, is "TV Safe Action".

Bob

As I understand it the "safe area" is just where the action largely needed to stay. (Probably accounting for people who in 1990 still had older tube TVs with that shape picture) But the TV-Transmitted is what someone would have seen on their modern-day TV and is also what is on the DVD/BD.

I think TNG will be shown in widescreen once stations finally start showing the remastered show in reruns. It also happened with TOS remastered.

But each episode with be a few minutes short since they will be edited to show more commercials.

Which is how they SHOULD be seen! We're in a modern TV world here, 45 minutes of content is way too much for modern audiences who're used to 20 minutes or so of commercials during their programing. So edit the episodes down to fit modern standards for episode length minus commercials.

I think TNG will be shown in widescreen once stations finally start showing the remastered show in reruns. It also happened with TOS remastered.

But each episode with be a few minutes short since they will be edited to show more commercials.

Which is how they SHOULD be seen! We're in a modern TV world here, 45 minutes of content is way too much for modern audiences who're used to 20 minutes or so of commercials during their programing. So edit the episodes down to fit modern standards for episode length minus commercials.

It's not fans want, but I'm trying to be realistic. Stations want to make as much money as possible which means more commercials.

Location: The planet Terminus, site of the Encyclopedia Foundation on the periphery of the galaxy

Re: Blu Rays Aspect Ratio Question

LOKAI of CHERON wrote:

jimbotron wrote:

Using the zoom feature on your Blu-ray remote does that for you. The choice is literally at your fingertips already. If CBS-D were to create 16x9 versions, it wouldn't look any better than zooming it yourself. Heads would be chopped off, the saucer of the Enterprise would be chopped off, etc.

No, that's not right at all.

When a studio does the cropping, it's usually done in a "smart" way, with at least some attempt made at shot composition. Depending on what's important in a given scene, the general wisdom is to position the matte just above the heighest head.

I'll grant you it's probably possible to make a decent looking widescreen version of the show. I still don't get why fans would want the show chopped up in the first place.

Would sawing off the top and bottom of the Mona Lisa provide observers with a fuller experience? Would chopping off the left and right sides of Picasso's La Guernica to fit a frame it was never intended to fit make for a better art viewing experience? I just don't get it, and clearly I never will.